This invention pertains to communication networks and more particularly to those networks connected in loops.
Prior communication networks primarily consist of straight forward communication loops in which information travels around the network unidirectionally. Such a loop is shown in FIG. 1. Improvements in networking resulted in networks in which the flow of information is bi-directional. This was especially useful if a break or malfunction occurred either in the connecting cables or in the node equipment. If a break occurred in cable 12, the direction of communication reversed at the break and all nodes remained connected to the network. If, however, a second break or malfunction occurred say, in cable 14, then the network ceased to communicate, even though its nodes may have remained perfectly functional. In conventional networks, each node is connected to contiguous nodes. There is a disadvantage to this manner of connection, if the physical layout of the network is very long, i.e., from the first node PN1 of a path and PN9 the last node PN9 of the path. Such a configuration may occur in a high rise building with a node on every floor. The return loop, cable 16, in such a configuration may be physically very long and thus susceptible to noise interference.